Valediction
by Leondra
Summary: A bidding farewell. 'Rachel is terrible with strangers.'


**A/N: Okay, my pretties! This was written last night when I should have been sleeping, and barely edited at all, so it's not my favorite piece of all time. In fact, there's only one paragraph I really love, and you get cookies if you can guess which one. :D**

**Disclaimer: Do I sense a woe? I sense I do- because nothing is mine. Well, none of the characters, scripts, etc. I do own a Friends throw pillow, though, and it's pretty. **

**Warnings: Tense change, I suppose. It's in present, but there's a rather large flashback, which is in past tense. And mentions of Rachel getting injured enough as a young'in to leave a lasting scar, if that would bother you. Plus, copius amounts of angst**

**Dedication: To Violetfishy, for being awesome.

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**Valediction- A bidding farewell. **

When Ross and Rachel fight (which, these days, is often) it's usually in the presence of friends. Phoebe and Monica will pull up in on themselves, turning towards each other in the pretense of having some sort of conversation, but it couldn't be more clear that they're listening to the spat attentively.

Joey leaves the area immediately- he hates it when his friends aren't getting along- but Chandler pulls back and watches. It's always the same- he leans back in his chair or takes a step backwards as Ross and Rachel get up to scream in each other's faces. He's always expressionless, but his eyes are intense, taking everything in. Rachel is aware of this, and that's why her most heated arguments take place when no one is watching. Because somehow arguing is more intimate than that.

Ross is always too focused to realize what's happening and that's why he looks so incredibly stupid when he's angry. It's because he has no _idea_ he's being so incredibly stupid. It's never occurred to Rachel to wonder why Chandler looks so wistful when he watches- she's marked it down as pure nosiness, and deemed it one of Chandler's least redeeming qualities.

But they're not _always _arguing. There are times when Ross seems so completely perfect for her, even with his issues with her job, and Mark. And then Rachel feels that she's somehow done something right.

---

Ross likes being injured. Or, at the very least, he likes talking about it. One of his favorite topics (other than dinosaurs) is listing injuries. He asks Joey, who mostly talks about nicks he got from doing immensely idiotic things (climbing a tree to reach his girlfriend's window in high school) and Monica, who insists that she's never been hurt, although both Rachel and Ross know better. Phoebe airily talks about pimps spitting in her mouth, people going after her with various weapons, and stepping on sharp objects barefoot. After that, even Ross shies away from bringing up the subject near Phoebe.

Chandler only mentions the time Monica brianed him (his words, not Rachel's) during a game of Pictionary.

The worst injury Rachel has is from falling down a fence when she was seven. She managed to snag on a nail, and scratched her ribs terribly. Every now and then she runs her fingers over the scar in the shower, thinking of what it had been like; a strange feeling, the pain delayed.

The first time Ross saw the scar had been when she was 14 and he was 16, wearing her first two-piece bathing suit at Monica's pool party. He'd quizzed her about it then, eyes flitting from it to her breasts, and she'd waved him away impatiently after a few minutes. Now he pays attention to is only as a means of foreplay, kissing his way up and smiling shyly up at her.

Chandler's fascination with it had been a surprise. The first time he caught sight of it had been when she'd (infamously and _definitely_ accidentally) flashed him coming out of the shower. He'd quietly asked her about it a day or two later, after the initial embarrassment wore off. When she showed it to him (only at his _insistence_), he'd stared for a long moment, at the raw length of it, and even made a move as if to touch it. It was at this point that he seemed to remember just who's scar it was, and recoiled. She didn't understand why it was so interesting until she realized exactly how far she'd had to lift her shirt in order for him to see it, and promptly covered herself up again, blushing furiously. Chandler was a _guy_, after all.

They had stared at each other for a moment. He was gaping, but in a soft way- eyes half open, lips half open. Everything half un-done, from the way he was holding his arms to the way his head tilted sideways. He looked as though he was about to change drastically, as if he was frozen in-between two different actions. And for one reason or another, Rachel felt as though it was something she shouldn't be seeing. Something private. It was a part of Chandler that was gentle; too gentle. It was as if he'd forgotten himself.

Then his expression steadied itself, and Rachel almost smiled in pure relief, until she realized even though Chandler looked a little less…incomplete, he still didn't look like the Chandler she knew him to be. He wasn't smiling, and he was still watching her. A strangely guarded way that darkened his blue eyes to a storm grey. (Looking back on it, he had been wearing the same expression he wears whenever someone mentions his parents- in the split-second before he comes back with a joke- and the way he looks watching her and Ross fight.) She remembers wondering-

'_Is he going to_--?'

But instead, he stood up, rolling back his shoulders, and smiled in a way that felt like goodbye. That had been that.

---

'_That's that,' _she thinks with a strange detached calmness as Ross screams at her about petty jealousies. His face is almost terrifying; he looks so bitter and resentful. He seems like a complete stranger to her, because the _real_ Ross wouldn't make this- her work, her _life-_ so hard on her.

She isn't aware that she's spoken at least part of this out loud until Ross chimes in with "Well, what do you want me to _do_ about it?"

Rachel almost wishes Chandler were here, witnessing this argument, because it couldn't possibly feel as serious- _be_ as serious- with Chandler watching.

But Chandler is somewhere screwing up a date or losing at foosball or sipping cappuccino, and Rachel is terrible with strangers.

"Ross, I think we need to take a break…."


End file.
